Despite the likelihood of a sequel seeming fairly high, Sony has confirmed that it has ended its relationship with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale developer SuperBot Entertainment. The platform holder confirmed the news in a press release earlier this evening, adding that its Santa Monica studio will continue to support the release in the future.
“Sony Computer Entertainment can confirm that the working agreement with developer SuperBot Entertainment has amicably ended,” the company noted. “We have had a positive working relationship with this talented studio, and wish them the best of success in their next endeavour.”
Exactly what that will entail is unclear, but the developer has clarified that it will not be closing. “SuperBot Entertainment will continue working on projects that reflect our passion for games and our commitment to creating award winning titles,” a spokesperson told IGN. “We are very excited about beginning the next chapter of our future and invite all of our fans and supporters to follow our journey.”
The fledgling studio was recently struck by a round of layoffs, but it was believed that the developer was preparing for a PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale sequel. That’s unlikely to happen at this stage, which is a great shame. We were big fans of the original release, but it failed to set the sales charts alight. The title's first DLC pack – featuring Gravity Rush's Kat and Starhawk's Emmett Graves – is set to release later this month.
[source uk.ign.com, via kotaku.com]
Comments 15
Really strange situation, this. Sony created SuperBot to make this game, but the developer's now free to do its own thing. It's cool that everyone gets to stay in a job and everything, but I just find it all really weird.
I'm disappointed that there'll probably never be a sequel, though. I really enjoyed the game, and I felt like there were the building blocks in place for an even better sequel. Sony must have decided that there's just not enough interest in the concept to make the endeavour worth pursuing.
WOW... This sounds a lot lightbox studios.. Hopefully, Sony should step up and make more titles like The last of us or killzone mercenary. I love sony but sometimes jeez... Sometimes i do think they have no clue what people want.. Everybody loves ND ( NAUGHTY dog) so why not create a third team>?
It all just feels like one huge missed opportunity now. There are obviously a number of factors as to why All-Stars didn't do too well as a commercial product, but it's still a strange situation.
All-Stars just... it should have done better. It really should have.
Game about Sony's characters could be much better and with much better cast. So there is no surprise insuch decision =).. They should've make some RPG about sony's characters =))) or sandbox game, or 3D fighting with different modes.
It strikes me that they're trying to streamline. They worked with LightBox, Eat Sleep Play, and SuperBot on exclusive games, but none of them did amazingly commercially.
I think they'll continue to expand their first-party studios from now on. Guerrilla is split into three teams now, Naughty Dog is two, Santa Monica is two, etc. Short of adding Quantic Dream to the porfolio, I think they're just going to cut down their line-up from now on.
It's sad news in a way, but from a business perspective, I suppose it makes sense to have three or four massive releases a year, and market the hell out of them, rather than have six or seven games. I mean, when you think about it, the money they invested in Starhawk could have used to market Uncharted 3 even harder.
Maybe Sony just looks for talents.
I'm disappointed with the fact there might not be a sequel, too. It seems now-a-days if your game isn't a commercial success and isn't a huge blockbuster, the parent company will just dump you like your nothing. Pretty stupid, I though PS All-Stars showed what potential SuperBot had under Sony, what a shame There still around though, so that's a positive.
Ouch! Even Sony didn't like Allstars. Note to SuperBot from Sony. Dear SuperBot, you've just been streamlined, don't let the door hit your rear ends on the way out. Love, Sony.
I think that with all these games failing to light up the sales charts, Sony is experiencing the same problem as THQ. There isn't much room left for mid-tear retail games. I think that Sony is going to continue its trend of releasing fewer games and focusing on its biggest franchises in the same way that Microsoft focuses on it's few exclusive games, and makes their releases into events. The studio closures are proof of this for me.
I'm perfectly okay with Sony focusing on fewer studios and giving them bigger budgets for both designing the games, and for marketing. Though I hope that it won't result in fewer new IPs. For the past 3 generations, many Sony owned studios have started new IPs to begin a console generation, and abandon them for new ideas with the release of the next Playstation. I think this has worked in their favor to allow Sony published games to always feel fresh and modern in both gameplay design, and art style.
And what about Sanzaru games? Sony always give chances and looking for new developers.
They should do their own thing now and create something original.
If you make a bad game that sells poorly you'll be dropped. Not exactly rocket science. Said it before and I'll say it again, the whole game was a massive own goal and one Sony now seem to be brushing under the carpet as fast as they can.
I hope ESP and LightBox goes third party because all sony can do is let down another studio and shut them down like they did with LivingPool. They only focus heavily on GOW, Uncharted, GT, LBP and soon to be TLOU. Never bother to advertise their other exclusives. Starhawk and Gravity Rush great games but didn't sell well. After this gen and the vita, sony been nothing but a laughing stock and a joke of a company. Over at the ign youtube news section all the pathetic fanboys are just laughing at this game failure. Sony is a disgrace to the playstation brand, negative after negative this whole gen. Here's hoping after PS4 they step down and let someone like samsung take their place if they are interested in gaming, don't wanna see a PS5. Here's hoping a better future to both SuperBot and LightBox, thank you for bringing PSASBR, Warhawk and Starhawk.
"...the working agreement with developer SuperBot Entertainment has amicably ended,"
What part of Sony dumping SuperBot is "amicably"? Did Sony say "it's not you, its me" before they kicked them to the curb?
This game was doomed from the moment it was conceived as a pure Smash Brothers 2D side scroller. Here's the thing - a little history lesson for you young'uns - Sony created the PS1 to make 3D world games. Sony pushed all the game companies to develop 3D world games and not 2D world games. Sony released the PS2 with "The Bouncer", a 20 minute long game that was all about the graphics and nothign but the graphics. And now on the PS3 they release a 2D cell-shaded fighter that could have come out on the SNES. Brilliant.
And for those who haven't tried it - you can have a fun 3D fighter, see GoW:Ascension multiplayer beta. THAT should have been PSASBR.
I don't care what people say. I thought PSAllstars was amazing. I had so much fun for weeks playing this underrated game. Casual games simply don't work on playstation consoles, or at least on ps3.
Move games fail, SIngstar is in a terrible state, all the dance games sold horribly (even just dance 3 and 4), THQ's Draw thing also failed.
Unfortunately, ps gamers only care about violent games, maybe with the exception of LBP, which did well at first, but the second did far worse saleswise and even lbp vita is doing terrible for such an amazing game.
Oh wel...
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